Asklepii. 1970 ; 1(): 23-[34].

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Marinov V.

In the work submitted, the author makes a brief historical review of Bulgarian ethnographic literature, related, among other things, also to popular medicine investigations. Reference is made to authors as Dr. Yuri Ivanovich Venelin (1825), G.S. Rakovsky (1859), and after the liberation of Bulgaria: Tzani Ginchev Shkeparnev, one of the outstanding protagonists for collecting facts and materials in the field of popular medicine in this country, M. Georgiev, Hr. Popstoilov, K. Irechek, Iv. D. Shishmanov and others. A description is made of the traditional methods of treatment with herbs, charms, healers and the like. Due attention is given also to the popular conceptions and explanation of the contributing factors of diseases, looking for the rationale in them and giving special consideration to the superstitious traces, inherited from the ancient Thracians.It is stressed that the items published heretofore in the "Comopilation of national folklore and literature", covering the field of popular medicine, constitute a great, unique in its significance, national wealth which is seldom found in other countries and which might be utilized by modern medicine as well as for drawing important ethnogenetic inferences.